The New Japanese Republic---Empire, in everything but name---was
strong, but surprisingly benevolent. For the first time in its modern
history this serious, hard-working nation had the room and resources to
keep its naturally overachieving peoples busy and content. There was
no longer any reason for the underlying brutality of earlier Japanese
culture, and in truth many of the more aggressive social and political
stances had begun to lose favor among the masses. How long this
relative inner calm would last none could say, and few thought to cross
them. In romanticized histories of the second World War the saying,
"Let sleeping dragons lie," had been used to refer to the United
States. It now applied with equal and ironic aptness to the Japanese.